Pyrea wrote:It somehow thinks that retribution paladins can use Aura Mastery, I had to manually set the rule for it to check for the talent.

Yes, this will unfortunately be the case for any ability you want to use Spell Monitor for. This is a unique issue with Hermes because Hermes tries to tell you who has something available. All the other addons out there tell you who just used something. Hopefully you can see why this is an issue unique to Hermes.

I think most people only look at a handful of spells, so the work required on your part to make a Spell Monitor spell "correct" is hopefully limited. And because I literally provide you with all of the talent names, it's really easy to just make a requirment for the talent (sure beats typing it all in manually!)

I'm actually very happy that you were able to realize that adding a Requirement was the proper thing to do! I have been parranoid about how intuitive this feature is and that you were successful makes me happy

You have two options however if you want to avoid the work in the future, as I list in this FAQ:

Q: I only want to see when someone uses a spell. I don't care who has it available. Does Hermes do this?

Yes. There are two ways to do this:1. For containers using "Bars Style", you can check the "Only show bar when spell is on cooldown" option found under the "Bars Style" section of a container. 2. Download LightUI and use that for the UI instead of the default UI. LightUI only shows abiltiies that are on cooldown.[/list]

So, if you use the LightUI or your container is set to Bars Style (not buttons) and you check that option, then Hermes acts like all the other addons out there will only show something when an ability gets used. This eliminates those "false positives" from an improperly configured spell.

By the way, you might wonder why I don't just provide all the spell requirments out of the box (such as Aura Mastery requiring the talent Aura Mastery). There are a couple reasons. The biggest one being Localization. The other reason is that it's a ton of work and I honestly don't want to maintain a list of all this stuff that will change for every patch.

My assumption is that if people are only worried about a small handful of spells, it won't be asking too much of them to configure it themselves.

As its currently taking up a lot of space on the screen, id like it not actually removing a lot of my screen space.

Yeah I'll lock down dragging with an option in the next release. I assume that's what you're referring to? The buttons and bars are non interactive otherwise (excluding the tooltip). So please let me know which part of all that is the complaint so I'm clear. I tend to scale mine down as needed to make it small.

I'll be pushing one more build before 4.2 with the patch changes (already tested and checked in). And I'll add a feature for that then.

I found that in Bars mode I could not click through the unused space of the add-on, which caused some selection issues.

I had the box showing only 4 items, and put it at the top of my screen. Looked fine - there were just the 4 heading up there not taking up much space. I anticipated only 2 entries in any given column because in a 10-man raid you don't have much duplication of class.

However, the minimum height the add-on allowed was still quit large, so there was a lot of unused space below those headers - probably 3-4 cm worth. Since it was clear and since I locked the position of the add-on, I didn't figure it would be a problem.

Well, come the first add-group I had to mark-up, I couldn't select anything through the area the Hermes had reserved. Instead it just showed me detail of empty columns as no one had used any relevant ability yet.

I tilted my view to select the mobs and continue the raid, but at the first pause I just disabled Hermes, sorry to say.

I like the concept a lot, but I just can't have "dead areas" of my screen through which I can't click on players or mobs. DBM is quite imperfect with it's spell cooldowns, but at least when the bars are not shown it's not eliminating any screen area.

Koatanga wrote:I found that in Bars mode I could not click through the unused space of the add-on, which caused some selection issues.

I had the box showing only 4 items, and put it at the top of my screen. Looked fine - there were just the 4 heading up there not taking up much space. I anticipated only 2 entries in any given column because in a 10-man raid you don't have much duplication of class.

However, the minimum height the add-on allowed was still quit large, so there was a lot of unused space below those headers - probably 3-4 cm worth. Since it was clear and since I locked the position of the add-on, I didn't figure it would be a problem.

Well, come the first add-group I had to mark-up, I couldn't select anything through the area the Hermes had reserved. Instead it just showed me detail of empty columns as no one had used any relevant ability yet.

I tilted my view to select the mobs and continue the raid, but at the first pause I just disabled Hermes, sorry to say.

I like the concept a lot, but I just can't have "dead areas" of my screen through which I can't click on players or mobs. DBM is quite imperfect with it's spell cooldowns, but at least when the bars are not shown it's not eliminating any screen area.

Oh!! I completely understand what you guys are saying now!

I take for granted since I know exactly what's going on behind the scenes. I'll correct it. It's an extremely simple change.

I have a question I'd like your serious opinions on. One complaint I've heard (more than once) is how Hermes forces you to specify the number of bars to show in bars mode, and has dead space for bars if you don't have enough people to fill them.

I'm curious how many people like or dislike that behavior. If you could offer your opinion that would be useful. I try very hard to make Hermes the best it can be.

I am looking at changing the behavior so that the width or height of each ability while in bars mode is set based on how many actual players have the ability instead of how many bars you set. But it'll actually mean a loss in how things automatically "wrap around".

I am pretty sure if I make this change, it'll mean that each container is going to be either horizontal or vertical, and there can ever only be one row or column per container (depending on orientation)

my interface "lining things up" OCD says keep it the way it is, my interface "don't waste space" OCD says make them condensed. Overall I like it the way it is right now. I have it set up to show a maximum of three bars, as we never have more than three of one class (paladin *cough*) in our 10 man.

There are some technical issues which I need to solve regarding showing the tooltip while still having the abilities be click through. Ended up being a bigger pain than I thought (Blizz API limitations)

I'm also rethinking how to reduce screen space occupied by unused bars.

Pyrea wrote:my interface "lining things up" OCD says keep it the way it is, my interface "don't waste space" OCD says make them condensed. Overall I like it the way it is right now. I have it set up to show a maximum of three bars, as we never have more than three of one class (paladin *cough*) in our 10 man.

For a 25man, we sometimes have only 2 paladins, and sometimes 5 (and we still have no ret )So this makes it annoying for me personally, it shouldnt be much of an issue, maybe an option to choose one or the other could work aswell.

inthedrops wrote:I am pretty sure if I make this change, it'll mean that each container is going to be either horizontal or vertical, and there can ever only be one row or column per container (depending on orientation)

I wouldn't mind a layout where each bar is (BoxWidth/NumPlayers) wide. Would this require that you remove the wrapping function, or could you add a third type (button,bars,scaling bars)?

I was fortunate enough to be able to watch a stream of an entire raid for something using Hermes. I saw a couple bugs, and got some feedback about simple changes for improvement.

Hermes v2.2 changelog:

Compatibility updates for Firelands, 4.2.

Spell Monitor: Fixed bug with Soulstones not tracking when used to res dead player.

Spell Monitor: Last Stand and Rallying Cry will now trigger each other when one or the other is used.

DefaultUI: The "Lock Containers" option now also locks all drag and drop capability. To enable dragging again, you need to unlock the containers. The purpose of this change is to be able to click through buttons/bars and select mobs behind them. I don't think anyone is ever dragging while in combat!

When I started using Hermes I thought how cool this is to see the cooldowns of all these abilities in my raid. Then I realised I really don't care about a lot of people's abilities - I just needed to see the ones that I am planning to call for.

Additionally, some abilities do the same function, such as the 3 flavours of combat res, and lust/hero/warp.

I would also like to view it from a "has available" standpoint instead of an "is on cooldown" standpoint.

So what I would prefer to see would be something like this, formatted like the Lite version:

Combat Resses:ChickenmcpwnMcdeathniteLockymclockTreemeisterUnbearable

Lust/Hero/Warp:LittlehottieShockazuluManatidebot

Being combined-function groupings optionally sorted by role (DPS/Healer/Tank) since that's my usual preference for using such things. DPS/Healer isn't so important, but it's inconvenient at best for a bear tank to res while tanking, so would be my last choice if I had others available.

Then below that the non-grouped abilities like Divine Guardian, etc.

In my perfect world, the list would grow as necessary without reserving space. It would have a definable maximum and minimum number of actors per group/ability (perhaps I want to show a max of three combat res, since that's the most I could use in a fight), with preference for non-cooling abilities. It would have an option per group to display dead people or not.

So let's say Chickenmcpwn and Mcdeathnite are dead, and Treemeister's res is on cooldown. In this example, I haven't set a max number to display. The list would show:

Dead are prioritised over cooldown because they could use their ability if brought back to life.

That may be too speecialised for the scope of your project, and I understand you are not out to cater to the whim of every person who has used it for a brief time and hasn't completely grasped what it can and can't do. It may be that what I am looking for is not the intent of Hermes.

When I started using Hermes I thought how cool this is to see the cooldowns of all these abilities in my raid. Then I realised I really don't care about a lot of people's abilities - I just needed to see the ones that I am planning to call for.

Additionally, some abilities do the same function, such as the 3 flavours of combat res, and lust/hero/warp.

I would also like to view it from a "has available" standpoint instead of an "is on cooldown" standpoint.

So what I would prefer to see would be something like this, formatted like the Lite version:

Combat Resses:ChickenmcpwnMcdeathniteLockymclockTreemeisterUnbearable

Lust/Hero/Warp:LittlehottieShockazuluManatidebot

Being combined-function groupings optionally sorted by role (DPS/Healer/Tank) since that's my usual preference for using such things. DPS/Healer isn't so important, but it's inconvenient at best for a bear tank to res while tanking, so would be my last choice if I had others available.

Then below that the non-grouped abilities like Divine Guardian, etc.

In my perfect world, the list would grow as necessary without reserving space. It would have a definable maximum and minimum number of actors per group/ability (perhaps I want to show a max of three combat res, since that's the most I could use in a fight), with preference for non-cooling abilities. It would have an option per group to display dead people or not.

So let's say Chickenmcpwn and Mcdeathnite are dead, and Treemeister's res is on cooldown. In this example, I haven't set a max number to display. The list would show:

Dead are prioritised over cooldown because they could use their ability if brought back to life.

That may be too speecialised for the scope of your project, and I understand you are not out to cater to the whim of every person who has used it for a brief time and hasn't completely grasped what it can and can't do. It may be that what I am looking for is not the intent of Hermes.

Grouping abilities has been requested and is high up on my enhancement list. I can't commit to exactly how I'd implement it (a few technical/design challenges), but it's something I want to do.

As I mentioned to someone else recently (in private) Hermes has grown so much in functionality over the last month that my intentions are to let it settle a bit before adding more bugs, er I mean features

Seriously though, I keep finding a bug roughly once per week so I want it to marinate a bit.

No one should feel shy to speak their mind. I'm an easy going person and listen to everything said. Great ideas from everyone here!

Nikachelle wrote:So I find I have to go in and choose "auto detect" for each individual spell before I see them. Is this normal?

Actually, it's more the opposite.

Long story short, if there isn't a value for Base Cooldown, then Hermes won't track that spell for non Hermes users. So something needs to be there. The UI gives some clues for you via the Status text but I realize this can be a bit confusing at first.

For example, I just added a new spell not provided by Hermes and this is what it looks like:

What I need to do, since Hermes hasn't seen that spell before, is uncheck the Use Auto Detection box and then manually enter a value, like this:

From this point on, if Hermes sees that spell in the combat log, it'll assume it has a 60 second cooldown.

If the "Use Auto Detection" feature is set, Hermes starts looking for other Hermes users using the spell. If it sees it, then it'll set the Base Cooldown for you automatically based on the value provided by that other Hermes user. Since you likely don't have any other Hermes users in your raid, it's probably a pointless feature.

If you find the need to mess with Requirements and Adjustments, a brief description is:

Requirements: Describes who can have an ability.Adjustments: Describes factors that can change the Base Cooldown of an spell, and the amount of change.

If you don't enter any requirements, then Hermes is left to assume that anyone belonging to the class the spell was assigned to will have the ability. Using Ardent Defender as an example, clearly not all Paladins have it, so you would probably want to make a "Talent Name" requirements saying that the Ardent Defender talent is needed to have this spell.

Since you're using Hermes_LightUI, you don't have to worry about requirements at all. But you may need to make a couple adjustments depending on what spells you're tracking.

The approach I'll be investigating soon, is to create a single checkbox that merges spells in a container. The name you give the container would end up being the generic name of the spell, "Battle Res" in the case above. Drag and drop would have to be completely disallowed while merged, and the container could only contain one set of merged spells (which is whatever spells you drag into the container). So that might be a bit of an annoyance in that you'd have to un-merge anytime you want to add or remove a spell to the container, then merge again.

I'm not sure how to handle the icon. I suppose letting the user specify an icon of their choosing is the only thing I can think of. Or not showing one at all. I'd probably put icons on the spell bars in this case too:

fuzzygeek wrote:One possible bug is my hermes seemed to trigger for all priests for all abilities; they all had PS and GS, for instance.

Did you by any chance create appropriate Talent Name or Spec requirements for PS and GS? It should look something like this for PS:

I've thought about creating all of these Requirements by default out of the box for the default spells that Hermes provides. But there are some technical challenges caused by Localization and it'll also cause a lot of extra maintenance.